Contributed by Ron Ginther and his mother, Pearl
Tales for a Little Tupin or Tuta
Tornado!
The Moral of this story is that any time of trouble is a good time to ask God to help us. He can provide protection for us in the midst of the worst storm, and He can bring good out of even very bad situations.
Way back in Bible days there were floods, fires, thunderstorms, lightning, and droughts. There were also dangerous wild animals like lions, tigers, snakes, and crocodiles that could attack and hurt people when they were out traveling. We may not have wild animals to contend with today, but what about other cars and trucks when we travel on the high-speed roads and highways? Conditions on the roads are just as real and dangerous to us as anything they faced in Bible times.
The Bible mentions a whirlwind in the book of Job. Nowadays we call it a tornado, or twister, which is the same thing--a very dangerous dark cloud that turns round and round with such power that it can lift cars, trucks, and buildings up and dash them into many pieces. Have you ever seen one? The Midwest where most of the Stadem descendants live is where most tornadoes appear every year, but nowadays they are appearing regularly even in places where there aren't supposed to be any.
Plain View Farm has seen a tornado or two in its day. Nearby, the town of Bryant has seen tornadoes come and smash buildings flat to the ground. Fortunately, the house at Plain View has been spared
destruction, but it has happened to other farmsteads in the area. One time a tornado came and did so much damage to the barn that Alfred Stadem had to build a new one.
Tornadoes are known for doing very strange things. They can somehow shoot thin strands of straw completely through wooden fence posts without breaking the stems of the straw. How is that for force, speed, and power? Besides acting like jack-hammers, busting things apart, or shooting straw stems through fence posts, tornadoes also sometimes lift things up and set them down quite a distance away without damage. A baby, as well as dogs and cats, have been picked up and set down that way, according to the news.
Well, the tornado that wrecked Alfred and Bergit's barn grabbed the cutter--a kind of sleigh the children used for going to school and was drawn by horses--and set it way up on the barn roof. There is a picture of this you can see. But mostly tornadoes hurt and destroy anything in their path. People should get out of the way as quickly as possible and pray for God's protection. Is there anything scarier than a tornado? Earthquakes are bad too. But tornadoes can be just as bad, or worse, because there is a lot more of them than earthquakes.
Alfred's dad had a close call with a tornado. It didn't take his barn, but it completely wrecked the new house his dad was building. The men had just enough time to scramble out the sides of the unfinished house and drop to the ground before the house was whirled away by the tornado and destroyed! The family looked for anything left of it, but there was nothing except a picture of the family found about two miles from the farm. They were so amazed to find even this picture! How thankful they must have been that their lives were spared, and no one was hurt.
Isn't it good to know that God is greater than any storm cloud or bad thing that could happen to you? The Bible says so in many places. Remember the story of the Hebrews enslaved in Egypt and little baby Moses? His poor mother had to put him in a basket in a big river full of crocodiles to save his life from the cruel king of Egypt, but God saw to it that the king's own daughter adopted him!
Later, when he was grown, Moses was the man God chose to lead His Chosen People the Hebrews to freedom and back to the Promised Land. And then there's Joseph, who as a boy was thrown in a deep well by his older brothers who wanted to get rid of him because he was much better than they were and he was his father's favorite. Joseph's life too was spared by God, and later he showed his brothers forgiveness and saved them from starving when there was no rain for seven years.
Many times, more than you can count or imagine, both in the Bible and in our own lives, God brings much good out of bad situations. What a wonderful God we have, who loves and protects us like this!
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